Unions Won’t Let House Puppets Pass Senate Bill

I agree with them!

AFL-CIO legislative director Bill Samuel tells me in an interview that labor won’t support any efforts by the House to pass the Senate health bill in its current form — creating major complications for one of the key solutions Dems are contemplating in the wake of their huge loss last night.

“We don’t want the House to pass the Senate bill,” Samuel said a few moments ago by phone. “We would not be in favor of passing the Senate bill without fixing the problems that we’ve identified.”

Labor’s opposition to this solution is not wholly surprising, because labor is adamantly opposed to a number of provisions in the Senate bill, such as the “Cadillac” tax and state-by-state, rather than national, exchanges. But Samuel’s declaration is noteworthy, because it renders the odds that House leaders will pursue this route remote indeed — forcing them to search for other solutions.